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About What Just Happened

For the past decade change seemed to happen over night, every night. Fueled by the exponential rise of technology, the digital revolution was difficult for many to make sense of, but James Gleick watched and analyzed, criticized and commended, participated in and prophesized about the instantaneous transformations of the world as we knew it.

What Just Happened is a collection of Gleick’s articles from this equally exciting and terrifying decade—remember Y2K?—that range from condemnations of maddeningly pervasive bugs in Microsoft software to the invisible shackles we wear in an “Inescapably Connected” world. Combining insight and reason with wit and passion, What Just Happened is an essential tour of our technology-driven mania.

About What Just Happened

Here’s some of what just happened: Millions of ordinary, sensible people came into possession of computers. These machines had wondrous powers, yet made unexpected demands on their owners. Telephones broke free of the chains that had shackled them to bedside tables and office desks. No one was out of touch, or wanted to be out of touch. Instant communication became a birthright.

A new world, located no one knew exactly where, came into being, called “virtual” or “online,” named “cyberspace” or “the Internet” or just “the network.” Manners and markets took on new shapes and guises.

As all this was happening, James Gleick, author of the groundbreaking Chaos, columnist for The New York TimesMagazine, and—very briefly—an Internet entrepreneur, emerged as one of our most astute guides to this new world. His dispatches—by turns passionate, bewildered, angry, and amazed—form an extraordinary chronicle. Gleick loves what the network makes possible, and he hates it. Software makers developed a strangely tolerant view of an ancient devil, the product defect. One company, at first a feisty upstart, seized control of the hidden gears and levers of the new economy. We wrestled with novel issues of privacy, anonymity, and disguise. We found that if the human species is evolving a sort of global brain, it’s susceptible to new forms of hysteria and multiple-personality disorder.

What Just Happened is at once a remarkable portrait of a world in the throes of transformation and a prescient guide to the transformation still to come.

About James Gleick

James Gleick is our leading chronicler of science and technology, the bestselling author of Chaos: Making a New Science, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, and The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood. His books have been translated into 30… More about James Gleick

About James Gleick

James Gleick is our leading chronicler of science and technology, the bestselling author of Chaos: Making a New Science, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, and The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood. His books have been translated into 30… More about James Gleick

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Praise

“A marvellous journey around our technology-drenched world … The work of a master.” –The Independent

“Gleick’s a crack investigator who digs for the exceptional facts…. A worthy overview…on the brave new problems we’ve faced—and will face into the future.” –Detroit Free Press

“Invokes nostalgia for a simpler, more innocent time, before we took all this technology for granted.” –The Rocky Mountain News

“What Just Happened is a lively time capsule that examines the recent past—one that, not long ago, seemed fairly far-fetched.” –Columbus Dispatch

“Gleick is a writer blessed with a techie’s mind and insight. . . . As we further immerse ourselves into a plugged-in world, it would be wise to listen to what Glieck had to say back when.” —Book Street USA

"Gleick is the king of popular science writing." —Irish Times

"Gleick is one of America’s leading exegete of the technological revolution that, like it or not, is taking over all our lives. He spends his at the cutting edge of computer and allied sciences, returning from the front with visions of the future." —The Observer

“Gleick’s essays remain pertinent.” —The New York Times Book Review

“James Gleick . . . is on the outer reaches of the electronic frontier . . . and [he] has mastered it.” —The Roanoke Times

“What Just Happened is a lively time capsule that examines the recent past— one that, not long ago, seemed mostly far-fetched.” —The Columbus Dispatch